Regularly updated blog charting the most important albums of the last 50 years

Friday, March 14, 2008

523. Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual (1983)

Track Listing

1. Money Changes Everything2. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun3. When You Were Mine4. Time After Time5. She Bop6. All Through The Night7. Witness8. I'll Kiss You9. He's So Unusual10. Yeah Yeah

Review

The queen of pop before the queen of pop brings us songs about implied lesbianism (When You Were Mine) and masturbation (She Bop), in some pop with a pronounced post-punk slant to it. And is she better than Madonna at the same time!

This is not to say this is a great album, actually the songs are quite uneven in their quality, being mostly songs that the record company wanted her to sing more than her production. Although the album is always more successful when Lauper's ideas take the front stage such as in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which she heavily modified or Time After Time which she wrote or in the last duet of songs with their Betty Boop like vocals.

In the end this is quite good pop, but not amazing, still ti is listenable today, and the same does not happen with all 80s pop, there is not the same amount of Lauper saturation as there is of Madonna for example, or even Michael Jackson.

Track Highlights

1. When You Were Mine2. Time After Time3. Girls Just Want To Have Fun4. Yeah, YeahFinal Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

With a series of quirky videos, Lauper dominated MTV for several months. Her bizarre fashion, consisting of multiple layers of thrift store clothing and dozens of accessories, influenced fashion for the last half of the 1980s.

The album was nominated for five Grammies: Record of the Year (Girls Just Want To Have Fun), Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (Girls Just Want To Have Fun), Song of the Year (Time After Time), Album of the Year, and Best New Artist, winning the last one.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 494 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.